From Monday to 7 pm Friday Thames provides ITV programmes for 14 million people living in and around the capital. For them, for ITV viewers throughout Britain and for television stations all round the world, Thames produces more than 1,200 programmes a year. The company’s aim is to educate, inform and entertain in depth and on the widest possible scale. Most of the drama, light entertainment and children’s productions are made in the riverside studios at Teddington, ten miles from Thames Television House, central London headquarters. At Teddington there are three studios, the largest of 7,500 sq. ft, all fully operational in colour with complete support facilities. Work is in hand for multi-million pound expansions and improvements at Teddington, which will include a fourth major studio.

Current affairs and documentary programmes are produced mainly at Thames Television House, with its presentation and audience studios and its extensive telecine, VTR and editing facilities. Today, London’s daily live magazine programme, and Good Afternoon, one of ITV’s most important programmes intended mainly for women viewers, also come from TTH.

Thames’s outside-broadcast units are based at Hanworth, near Teddington, where much of the production work for Drive-In, ITV’s motoring magazine programme, is carried out.

The programme output of these three centres has made Thames a leading contributor to the national Top Twenty programme ‘league table’. Overseas sales of programmes are increasing so that the Thames symbol on a tv programme is now famous internationally. Here is a list of some of the programmes Thames produces:

DRAMA: Armchair Theatre; Armchair 30; Armchair Cinema; Napoleon and Love; Way of the World; Jennie Lady Randolph Churchill; Six Days of Justice; Zodiac; Public Eye; Special Branch; Harriet’s Back in Town. FEATURES: This Week; The World at War; Good Afternoon; Today; Something To Say; People and Politics; The Day Before Yesterday. DOCUMENTARIES: (Bunny; The Road to Wigan Pier; We Was All One etc); specials. LIGHT ENTERTAINMENT: …And Mother Makes Three; Bless This House; Father, Dear Father; For the Love of Ada; Love Thy Neighbour; Man About the House; Never Mind the Quality, Feel the Width; Spring and Autumn; The David Nixon Show; Looks Familiar; Opportunity Knocks!; Thirty Minutes Worth; This is Your Life; Tony Bennett at the Talk of the Town; Whodunnit?; Whose Baby?; Carry on Christmas and specials from Max Bygraves; Tommy Cooper; Benny Hill; Frankie Howerd; Bob Monkhouse; Mike and Bernie Winters; Edward Woodward. CHILDREN’S: Magpie; Rainbow; The Tomorrow People; The Sooty Show; Hold the Front Page; Robert’s Robots; Pardon My Genie; Dawson’s Funny Old Farm; Michael Bentine’s Potty Time; Kids in the Country (special); Kids About Town (special); Amazingly Enough It’s Rod Hull and Emu; Sally and Jake; Larry the Lamb. OUTSIDE BROADCASTS: Wrestling; Racing; Football; Boxing; Ice Skating; Tennis; Athletics; Drive-In (motoring magazine); Wish You Were Here (holiday programme); Make a Break (snooker programme), SPECIALS: (Royal Command Performance; Miss TVTimes and other beauty contests; fashion shows) SCHOOLS: Seeing and Doing; Finding Out; The World Around Us; Drama; Song and Story; Evidence; Images; You and the World; Writer’s Workshop. ADULT EDUCATION: Treasures of the British Museum; A Place in the Country; A Place in History; Planting for Pleasure. RELIGION: Late Night Religious Programme (throughout the week), including With a Little Help From My Friends; A Time to Speak; Violence, Vantage Point; Specials for Christmas and Easter, including Kontakion.

A limited number of tickets is available for audiences at certain shows. Applications, enclosing stamped addressed envelopes, should be made to the Ticket Office at Thames Television House, 306-16 Euston Road, London NW1 3BB. The minimum age is 16, except for some programmes specially for children. Unfortunately, general studio tours are not normally possible because of busy production schedules.

Enquiries

Enquiries about artists and programmes should be addressed to Viewers’ Correspondence, Thames Television House, 306-16 Euston Road, London NW1 3BB.

Submission of Scripts

While Thames will always welcome the submission of proposals for plays and series, drama plans are subject to change over the year. Writers are advised in the first place to contact the Story Supervisor at Teddington Studios.

Sales and Marketing

Thames operates a full marketing and merchandising service and offers special rates for local advertisers, holiday and travel advertisers, etc. Details are available from the Sales Controller.

Teddington Studios from Ham Common, showing the production block and restaurant.